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Overwatch is one of the most hyped games I’ve seen in a while. Every outlet, which reviews video games is giving this one perfect scores. I must admit, I too am taken by the art style, characters and animated shorts that make up the Overwatch “Universe”, but the game is far from perfect! While I normally do review video games on this blog, this heavily super-hero inspired game, definitely, is in my wheelhouse!

I like, like everyone, was introduced to the concept of Overwatch with their first animated teaser, featuring characters Tracer and Winston battling Reaper and Widowmaker in a museum. Upon seeing this trailer, I was hooked: I wanted the comic, movie, action figures, Heroclix, and animated series right then! It would take about a year for more animated shorts to come out and Blizzard, the company which created the game/IP, also created 6 digital comics, which you can read and download, for free, from their website. The link to watch or read is here.

In May of the year, the game was released and it was..is a smash success! As I previously stated, every gaming outlet is reviewing the game as perfect or near perfect, which it is far from. Now to be honest, competitive first-person shooters aren’t my… “thing”! I’ve never excelled at them! I also don’t play MOBAs or MMOs, so forcing me to group up with strangers is also something I’m not used to, and while I know a huge demographic love this style of game play, I find it very repetitive and very boring! I love these characters and want to learn more about them and their world, but I don’t enjoy the game, and that’s my issue…there is no story in Overwatch! You learn nothing about the world or the characters in all the time you waste leveling up to earn useless, random loot. On top of that, this game is a “full priced” release on the consoles, at $60, and slightly cheaper on PC, at $40, provided you go for the base edition, WITH MICRO TRANSACTIONS! That is insulting! If you’re going to make me pay for the game, then give me everything up front. If this game was free to play, I wouldn’t complain about the very slow leveling and random loot drops, because that’s the price I pay for playing for free. Also, would it have killed them to add couch co-op, or a special couch co-op mode for the console versions. I want to play with my ACTUAL friends! I can deal with no couch co-op, but what really bothers me is no story campaign mode. This is 2016 and we can’t even get a solo campaign, which tells you the story and teaches you about each of the characters. Injustice: Gods Among Us has a fantastic story mode and it’s a fighting game…yes, A FIGHTING GAME!

All-in-all, this title is far from perfect! Everyone gave Star Wars Battlefront hell for not having a story mode and being too repetitive, but because it’s Blizzard, who only release games when the planets align, they get a pass. Because Blizzard puts time… quality time in their animated shorts, comics, art and characters, we can forgive a few missing modes and micro transactions…NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT! I love Blizzard as much as the next video game fan. While I’m not into Starcraft or World of Warcraft, I do love the Diablo series and in particular, Diablo 3, and I see how much is in that game and it makes me wonder, if Overwatch should have been delayed a bit longer to flesh out it’s offerings and make it a complete, “full priced” game! Right now, for me, it’s not Overwatch…it’s Overhype!